The Box is a major cultural and heritage attraction and archive, which opened in Plymouth’s city centre in September 2020. Its collection, formally the South West Film and Television Archive (SWFTA), is the regional film archive for the South West of England, comprising the combined programme libraries of Westward Television and Television South West (TSW). It also includes a significant number of donated film collections dating back to the early 1890s.
This film is part of Free
Sip-and-Puff Assistive Technology
Eileen Brown lives with Multiple Sclerosis and uses assistive technology to write after seven years.
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Overview
Eileen Brown from Braunton in Devon lives with Multiple Sclerosis and uses assistive technology in the form of sip-and-puff to write short stories and a novel after seven years of not being able to write due to her condition. Sip-and-puff uses air pressure by inhaling by sipping or exhaling by puffing through a special mouthpiece or wand which controls the typewriter and is based on the principle of morse code.
The Patient Operated Selector Mechanism (POSM or POSSUM) was developed in the early 1960s and used a sip-and-puff control mechanism. Morse code was used for typewriter control through voiced or sip-and-puff in the VOTEM system in 1969 and by oral muscular control by 1972. As technologies developed more investment produced augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) devices crucial in the education and communication of disabled people and children. Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a condition of the central nervous system where the coating of the nerve fibres or myelin is damaged by the body's own immune system.
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